A new lion's tank. The elusive rare Blackfoot Lion, with a buddy, a fu manchu. It was a fluke I found this guy, and had already conceded I wouldn't find one. The info you find on this guy is conflicting and really doesn't make sense at times. I know they come from waters around 73-74 degrees, so I set his tank up to 73.4 with .3 variance. The fu is happy at these temps as well, so I gave him a room mate. I have found these guys really do enjoy the company, much to the opposite prevalent info, in my Lion's Reef you'll find my lions perched together even laying on top of each other, hanging out in the same cave like a bunch of bats. Well the Blackfoot really hasn't taken to his new room mate yet, no aggression but we'll see how this plays out.
It's been a week and within the 1st couple of days he displayed classic dwarf lion personality, following me around and begging, he's about to pop from the live ghosties and guppies, but he's starving to death. The more I researched the more I found that people's conclusions were actually based on keeping one or maybe two specimens, you can not come to any conclusions that way. I'll do the best I can to keep this guy going. Common knowledge used to be that fu's needed colder water, like 70 degrees, just because people couldn't keep them alive they were reaching for reasons. My fu in the reef has been going for almost 7 years while the temp runs at 80.6 in the summer months.
The Blackfoot has displayed a bit different traits from other lion's I've kept, for one he doesn't hang in caves and rarely perches, I only see him on the rock when he's getting a vantage point to hunt. He glides along the bottom and even back wall. So to replicate his wild habitat I added sand to his observation tank to make him feel more at home. He's out in open sandbed mostly, while I'll catch him shelter himself slightly under the edge of a rock at night, after the early evening hunting trip..
It's been a week and within the 1st couple of days he displayed classic dwarf lion personality, following me around and begging, he's about to pop from the live ghosties and guppies, but he's starving to death. The more I researched the more I found that people's conclusions were actually based on keeping one or maybe two specimens, you can not come to any conclusions that way. I'll do the best I can to keep this guy going. Common knowledge used to be that fu's needed colder water, like 70 degrees, just because people couldn't keep them alive they were reaching for reasons. My fu in the reef has been going for almost 7 years while the temp runs at 80.6 in the summer months.
The Blackfoot has displayed a bit different traits from other lion's I've kept, for one he doesn't hang in caves and rarely perches, I only see him on the rock when he's getting a vantage point to hunt. He glides along the bottom and even back wall. So to replicate his wild habitat I added sand to his observation tank to make him feel more at home. He's out in open sandbed mostly, while I'll catch him shelter himself slightly under the edge of a rock at night, after the early evening hunting trip..
